Peter Steele

Peter Daniel Steele (22 August 1939 – 27 June 2012) was an Australian poet and academic at the University of Melbourne. He was also a member of the Jesuit order and a Catholic priest. He was awarded the Christopher Brennan Award, for lifetime achievement in poetry, in 2010.

Early life and education Peter Daniel Steele was born on 22 August 1939, the eldest of three sons, to an English immigrant father and Irish-English-Australian mother, Jesse. His father became Catholic when he married Jesse, and Peter was pious as a boy.

Steele grew up in Perth, Western Australia. He was educated at Christian Brothers' College there, then Loyola College in Melbourne. He attended the University of Melbourne (MA and PhD); Canisius College in Sydney, and the Jesuit Theological College in Melbourne.

Career In 1966, in 1993.

Steele became a much published poet, critic, and commentator in books, magazines, and journals. He was a visiting professor at the University of Alberta, at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and at Loyola University Chicago. on 27 June 2012 at Caritas Christi Hospice in Kew, Melbourne, aged 72. He was survived by one brother, Jack. funded by the Peter Steele Poetry Trust Fund, which was established by Susan Crennan AC QC in November 2017. The endowment is supplied by a group of donors, including Susan Crennan, Michael Crennan QC, Allan Myers AC QC, and Maria Myers AC, Peter's brother Jack Steele, and others.

Selected bibliography Poetry collections

Invisible Riders (1999) Plenty: Art into Poetry (2003) The Whispering Gallery: Art Into Poetry (2006) White Knight with Beebox: New and Selected Poems (2008) A Local Habitation: Poems and Homilies (2010) The Gossip and the Wine (2011)

Non-fiction Jonathan Swift: Preacher and Jester (1978) The Autobiographical Passion: studies in the self on show (1989)

Bread for the Journey: Homilies (2002) Braiding the Voices: Essays in Poetry (2012)